The Force for Good

Now is the Golden Age of fandom. From Avengers Assembling to Boys Who Lived, everyone now seems to have at least one pop-culture phenomenon in an ever-expanding landscape full of them where they can return, again and again, for enjoyment, excitement, or even escape. A majority of these ebb and flow from the spotlight of public attention (no matter how many Harry Potter themed weekends Freeform Channel tries to flood us with over the course of year), or attract a devoted yet small and insular group of like-minded individuals, but the point is that seemingly everyone can find their own pick on the menu at the moment.

However, one body of work seems to have missed the memo concerning this typical order of things entirely, casting an almost hypnotic effect on humans as a worldwide collective that's gone unbroken since it first trumpeted into our lives more than four decades ago.

I'm talking, of course, about Star Wars, and my suspicion is that no one reading this here needs a refresher on what it's about any more than the average person would need a refresher on, say... well, actually, I'm having difficulty coming up with anything as well-known or pervasive by way of comparison. Yoda, the Death Star, "I am your father" ... these things just seem to exist in the universal consciousness, with no explanation required, in a way that's almost baffling.

For those on the fringes of the Outer Rim who may recognize some of the more iconic things at first glance but aren't necessarily plugged in at diehard levels, Star Wars is back in the news again this week because the ninth and final installment of the so-called "Skywalker Saga" (a.k.a. the story George Lucas began telling way back in 1977) debuts around the world this Friday. It's being billed as the culmination of all eight films that have preceded it... everything from the original trilogy of the 1970s and 80s, the prequel trilogy of the late 90s and early 00s that filled in the back story of the most iconic baddie in all of cinema, the most recent installments under the direction of Disney, and even beyond, to the multimedia universe of spin-offs and adaptations that have sprung up around the central, Episodic films. For the millions of fans of a galaxy far, far away, this week has been circled on the calendar for a looooooong time.

I can almost hear the cynics among us rolling their eyes: "The last one? Really for real this time, the last one? What about the last two times the series claimed it was the last one? Those didn't count, huh?" much in the same way people roll their eyes about KISS announcing a nineteenth "This Is It, ULTIMATE FAREWELL" tour. In the name of fairness, if there's one thing Disney knows how to do, it's make some $$$ (the entertainment mega-corporation acquired total rights to the franchise's past, present, and future back in 2012, to the tune of $4 billion). Any parent who's left a ride in Disney World only to find themselves conveniently distributed into a ride-themed gift shop will testify as much, and one can't see the Mouse House abandoning a cash cow as ludicrously lucrative as Star Wars any time soon.

However, with Baby Yoda spawning new memes on a weekly basis over on The Mandalorian (the flagship show of Disney's new online streaming service), at least three more confirmed original shows coming down the pipeline, a deluge of comics, cartoons, and video games all dominating the market right now, and even a newly-opened theme park area, I'd say Disney's accountants have to be pretty happy with their Star Wars-shaped future. There are other stories to tell in this sandbox now, without needing to rely on the main films about the Skywalker extended family tree as the primary generators of content, so the film debuting Friday - Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, for those keeping track - has an air of definite finality to it.

To be fair, when the memes are this consistently adorable, who wouldn't want more?

Rather than delve into theories about what the movie will likely hold - REY + KYLO, IS IT FINALLY HAPPENING? IS THE EMPEROR ALIVE AGAIN THROUGH CLONING? WILL THERE BE BLUE MILK? - or try and philosophize about Star Wars' standing in relation to other pop-culture sensations before or since, I actually wanted to dedicate this post to what I think is the most important part of the series... the fans.

Through texts and social media posts, I sent out the question to friends and family: What does Star Wars mean to you? What is it about the appeal of this big goofy, wonderful space franchise, do you think?

Boy, it turns out people LOVE talking about Star Wars.

The answers I received back were better than anything I could've hoped. Wandering, passionate, personal, scrutinizing, these responses represent a whole spectrum of perspectives and opinions. If some seem to contradict one another, it just goes to show the range of interpretations Star Wars can offer to audiences. To me, the amount of similarities is what's even more interesting - echoes of people finding common ground and agreement in a time when those occurrences are more and more uncommon. Go ahead and take a read through them, then stick through the end for a final personal anecdote from Yours Truly that articulates my own thoughts about everyone's favorite space fantasy better than anything else I can think of.

WHAT DOES STAR WARS MEAN TO YOU? 

"Star Wars is my first memory of going to the movies. Star Wars is scrounging around my cousin Mike’s house looking for batteries to power up his Han Solo blaster. Star Wars is playing with my X-Wing fighter so much that I repeatedly snapped the wings off, which my dad then had to bring to work to have it fixed on the special machine that specifically fixes X-Wings. Star Wars is having a calendar countdown when the first prequel was about to be released. Star Wars is sitting in Gilday’s dorm with a mountain of beers, watching the entire original trilogy (on VHS) and cheering every time the opening credits started. Star Wars is getting to watch my son run around and fight invisible storm troopers. Star Wars is pretty good."

"Watching it, you see that one person has the ability to spark a change in the course of history. It's their decision whether this change will be for better or worse. Also, laser swords are pretty awesome."

"It shows how if you try to force a natural balance to favor one side, it will always result in disorder, no matter which direction it is pushed."

"Where to begin? I am the only girl out of three children, and I remember watching A New Hope in the basement on VHS, then spending the 15-20 minutes it took for the tape to rewind playing out the action, with my brothers playing Luke & Han. And then, of course, rewatching the movie and repeating the cycle all over again. Star Wars is the only pop culture experience that has stayed with me consistently my whole life, never once drifting into the realm of nostalgia or 'I used to love...' I was born during a decade in which the original trilogy was readily available, then got to experience the prequels as a young child on the big screen as they premiered, and now I get to live through this resurgence of popularity with my fiance. Our biggest argument thus far has been in which order we'll introduce our future children to the franchise... chronologically by story timeline, or by release date? (I'm Team Release Date, in case you were wondering)"

"Nostalgia. Everyone has a childhood memory of Star Wars that you keep near and dear to your heart forever."

"It can be frustrating, actually. Especially lately, but going back decades with George Lucas, it just seems like it's all happening at the whims of whoever happens to be in charge at the time. George Lucas is one of the worst creators around in terms of revisionist history... whether or not Han shot first (he did), Luke & Leia turning out to be siblings, all those controversies that radically alter what's come before them, only for Lucas to say 'Oh, that's what I intended all along, you're wrong to think otherwise.' And then you have something like The Last Jedi, where a director can come in off the street, ruin one of the franchise's main characters because it's where he so happens to think the narrative should go, then that's now the official story... there's a lack of cohesion or respect for the fans from installment to installment that has made me just lose more and more interest in it as it progresses."

There's debate about whether Han shot first or not, but no doubt at all about Patrick

"It says that anything is possible."

"I think it's the fact that the storyline is strong enough to hold the attention of people who may not be your typical sci-fi fans. For people who prefer movies that have 'deeper' meaning, it offers that element if you want to bother looking past the somewhat-hokey elements. While of course the different species and droids and all of that play their part, you can look past all that, and at the heart, there is a compelling story."

"I’ve always enjoyed the science-fiction aspect of the movies, the thought that this could actually be the future, that this could actually happen. The story line of good versus evil, and the twists in between where you have good-natured people that turn away and turn into the dark side. There are different twists, and you never know where it’s going."

"Everything."

"What drew me in was classic evil versus good plot line that also has a ton of grey areas. I think, like most stories, Star Wars is trying its best to show that people are complex, there's always a backstory, and life sucks."

"It's the universality. It not only appeals to everyone, both on a cross-cultural and cross-generational level, but it's one of the only things around today where you can get as much or as little out of it as you want to. I love Star Trek and Game of Thrones and a lot of today's other fictional universes, but you have to invest a lot of time and effort into understanding them sometimes.You can't necessarily just come off the street and enjoy them. Star Wars, you can. There's a simplicity to it that everyone can latch on to. There's a really appealing *pew pew* ray guns and laser swords element to it, playground style, and you can just put it on for a few minutes and mindlessly enjoy the sheer window-dressing craftsmanship on display of other imaginary landscapes, species, technology - BUT, all that said, you can also go deep and peel away at it with a scalpel and examine its tapestry as a modern mythology in a big, operatic sandbox. The ancient Greeks who had all these myths about the bloodlines of Zeus and self-fulfilling tragedies, Shakespeare and his plays about destinies written in the stars and all his comic relief characters... these people would've adored Star Wars. It really is satisfying on all those levels, it balances all those perspectives in a way that not much else can. We're so lucky to have this as something we can pass on to the future as a product of our time."

For being in the first grade at the time, I have to say I made a pretty convincing Sith apprentice

Now folks, turn back your clocks to circa 2005, with the Iraq War raging overseas and Green Day on the radio. I am in the sixth grade, and belong to that group of individuals who, in a word, struggle through their middle school years. Success at my small Catholic middle school is judged by peers according to two main factors: your ability on the kickball field, and your ability to act like you have NO enthusiasm for anything in the world at all, because caring is for geeks only. I am A) asthmatic and can't kick the rubber ball past the pitcher's mound, while others can send it soaring into the outfield ("automatic out!" is usually the signal that I'm stepping up to the plate), and B) deeply enthusiastic about all sorts of things, Star Wars high among them. Couple that with a big heaping helping of pre-teen introversion, and yeah, it's still not a time I look back fondly on, even now.

The Revenge of the Sith will be debuting in theaters in a few months, the final film of the Star Wars prequel trilogy that sees the once-heroic Anakin Skywalker finally transform into the black-armored behemoth the galaxy knows as Darth Vader, and books full of teaser images and concept art have been released to an eager public ahead of time. I've been keeping one of these stashed in my desk, and after sailing through any classwork the teacher assigns, I've been spending my days pulling it out to take a stab at drawing my own versions of the new ships, droids, and costumes it shows inside. There's a corner in the back of the classroom where the teacher, either impressed by or filled with sympathy for these sketches, has set up a makeshift art gallery for anyone to post their creations to. At the moment, it's papered from floor to ceiling with Star Wars masterpieces that I've been thumb-tacking there for weeks, the gallery's sole contributor.

One day, I'm mercifully spared from kickball, because some kind of bad weather is happening outside and we're having recess indoors. On special occasions like this, the divider door between classrooms 6A & 6B (the two halves of St. Margaret's small sixth grade year) is left open, and we're allowed to travel, wide-eyed, between the two rooms, getting a taste of what daily life is like for the tribe on the other side of the island. Realizing this opportunity for the unique market it provides, I pull a desk over near the open divider door, grab a stack of plain white paper, and prop up my concept art book so that there's no mistaking just what it is I'm offering. Forget playing cards, or the huddle forming around the one girl in class whose parents have bought her an early-model cell phone; I scrawl "FREE STAR WARS DRAWINGS" on the top sheet of paper, hang it over the side of the desk as a makeshift advertisement, then sit back and wait for what I know will be a steady stream of classmates who won't believe their good luck about this one-time offer. I wait... and make some hopeful eye contact with some passerby... and wait... "You want one? Oh... ok, no worries, you can always come back tomorrow if you want..." and wait... until recess is over, and I bring the utterly untouched pad of paper back to its storage bin.

I'll stop here to spare you any further tragic details, and leave off with the slightly surprising suggestion not to feel too bad for this young lad when all is said and done. For whatever reason, this incident didn't send him home that afternoon feeling miserable - by the time the next bell rang, the art book was back out again, and new drawings were being produced for no one else's enjoyment but his and the gallery wall's. In doing so, he was immersing himself once again in an epic saga that told how all evils passed eventually, be they Evil Empires or Wars on Terror, or even something as hellish as middle school; the trick was just to not give up on hope in the meantime. He learned that lesson well, and it's never left him since.

(As you can clearly tell)

Near fifteen years later, and while on a personal level I've moved on to a place galaxies away from the 6B classroom - seven marathons now separate me from the asthma of the kickball field, and I'm currently counting down the days until I get to marry a soulmate who actually shared that same recess yard with me - the world at large is seeing more than its fair share of new evils. For some mind-boggling reason, it seems that Nazis are, like, a thing again in society, mirroring a plot development in the Disney-era films that (I'll speak for everyone here) we'd rather have kept in the fictional universe. Vitriol, prejudice, divisiveness seem to threaten with every new venture into the Internet comment section, and a feeling of downright oppressiveness looms over the lives of a dishearteningly large portion of our society today.

But if Star Wars offers any kind of message whatsoever to its millions of fans worldwide, I think it's a rallying call to resist, to rebel against this kind of doom and gloom, to fight it with lightsabers and X-Wings and plain old stubbornness until it passes away, as it inevitably always will. I couldn't be prouder to stand and be counted in a Rebellion like that, with each and every one of my fellow Rebels quoted above, and it's been a joy to have experienced a story that inspires so much hope - A New Hope, you could say - with friends and family right up until the conclusion here.

Grab your lightsabers, folks. Let's get out there and do it all again one last time.

May the Force be with you.

JOKER'S On You.

"Cautionary" is a descriptor I try to steer away from whenever I attempt to peel back the curtain on pop culture phenomenons, because wagging a righteous finger about what books, TV, movies, etc. people should and shouldn't immerse themselves in is just about the furthest thing from my mind. But "eye-opening" is probably nearer to the mark I'm aiming for in this particular post, because a particular phenomenon is dropping our way this week, and it calls for nothing less than for viewers to be prepared for exactly what they're getting into.

Let's talk about Joker.

Directed by Todd Phillips (director of The Hangover trilogy, of all people), Joker has turned heads since its announcement by promising an origin story of sorts about probably the most iconic comic book baddie since the medium's birth almost a century ago. While that prospect isn't an entirely new one - it's a story that's been told, with some variations, through his multiple appearances as the antagonist in a never-ending stream of Batman media - this new film, landing Friday, focuses on the Clown Prince of Crime as its main character, with not a superhero in sight to oppose him as he descends from down-on-his-luck schmuck to criminal maniac.

Basically, think Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, under a layer of clown paint.

Depending on who you ask in the comics community, this idea is either a heresy worthy of black-listing, or the kind of bold artistic choice comic movies have been waiting on to legitimize themselves as "real art." I personally fall somewhere in the middle of those two camps, and on the whole, I admit I'm interested to see what they've come up with... but that's not to say I don't have hugeeee reservations about it, to the point where they actually might outweigh any interest -- for reasons that, surprisingly, have very little to do with its comics' roots.

I'm going to run through a brief summary of Mr. J's history in comics & other media to get everyone on the same page, and hopefully offer some context to this new film - but if you want to skip the refresher or don't feel like you need it, scroll on down a bit and, worry not, we'll get to unpacking allllll the baggage we need to.

The Spark Notes' overview of the character is this: after an unfortunate run-in with Batman early in the brooding hero's costumed career, an anonymous, low-level thug falls into a giant vat of chemicals that bleach his hair green & his skin paper-white, and paralyze his face into a hideous, permanent grin. The criminal's sanity snaps, and christening himself as the Joker, he begins a crime wave on Gotham City that has plagued Batman ever since.

Following in the great tradition of super villains posing as the dark side of the same coin to their respective heroes (a literary trope that dates back from the moment Professor Moriarty first strolled coldly into Sherlock Holmes' consulting rooms), Joker is the complete antithesis of the Dark Knight. Batman is somber, rigid, uncompromising, both a product and an enforcer (at times, a brutal one) of ruled, ordered society; Joker is flamboyant, explosively loud and colorful, frozen in eternal laughter even as he commits appalling acts of violence that have no place in society, or even undermine the rules that operate it. One of the adaptations discussed later in this post describes the pair, with perfect succinctness, as an experiment in what happens when "an unstoppable force meets an immovable object." They have been engaged in a now-eighty year dance of pursuit and escalation, a relationship that some writers have pushed into psychological realms of dependency or even infatuation.

The constancy of their dynamic, and Joker's role in it, offers a conveniently telling litmus test to pop culture historians of what was considered "villainy" at any point in the latter half of the 20th century & the beginning decades of the 21st; simply find a Batman comic from a given time and see what the Joker is up to in its pages for your answer. Depending on the contextual era and the residing writer's preferences at the time, Joker has engaged in everything from mischievous pranks - such as releasing laughing gas en masse through Gotham City - to blowing up entire hospitals, more often combining the two extremes into his own trademark brand of crime (using prop gags such as squirting flowers... where instead of water, it's acid).

According to comic-lore, the arch-criminal owes his appearance to the 1928 German Expressionist film The Man Who Laughs, an adaptation of a Victor Hugo story about a circus freak named Gwynplaine who is disfigured during childhood to bear a permanent, horribly unsettling grin. Looking at the publicity photo below of actor Conrad Veidt in his makeup, it's impossible not to see the direct resemblance to the comics figure birthed about a decade later.

Joker debuted with a series of serial murders before seemingly perishing - only to somehow survive and return, again and again, to quickly emerge as a fan favorite in Batman's classic gallery of super villains. When the Caped Crusader inevitably made the leap from printed comics to other media, the Clown Prince of Crime followed him almost immediately.

Older readers (or those with access to Youtube) probably have vivid memories of the mid-to-late 1960s Batman TV series starring Adam West as the super sleuth & Burt Ward as his teenage assistant, Robin. Joker, as played by Hollywood star Cesar Romero (previously typecast in suave, "Latin lover"- type roles), is portrayed here as a cackling, prancing goon, staging ridiculously elaborate pranks and robberies before being knocked out by a right hook and an accompanying SMACK! dialogue tag across the screen. Romero famously refused to shave his trademark mustache for the role, so the makeup team simply slathered on Joker's iconic white face paint over it. The result, like much of the show it belonged to, is ludicrous, and hasn't aged gracefully across the decades... but you can't help but smile watching it. Romero goes for broke in his performance, and his stamp on the role served as the successful entry point for an entire generation into Joker's antics.

Plus - when else would you ever get to see Joker catch some gnarly ones? 

(The 60s were weird, folks.)

The character then hovered in and out of popularity for nearly twenty years, before goth godfather Tim Burton brought Gotham's brooding protector to the big screen for the very first time in 1989's Batman. Every frame of the film drips with Burton's trademark gothic fever dream style, and stars a young Michael Keaton in the titular cowl; along with 1978's Superman, Burton's Batman really serves as the forerunner/template for all modern superhero cinema. Despite all these headlines, however, nothing grabbed audiences, then or now, like Jack Nicholson's scene-stealing turn as the criminal clown. Nicholson has made an entire career off his ability to play magnetic psychopaths - Burton here gave him a layer of clown paint, some checkered mobster pants, and room to swing, and the rest is Hollywood history.

With an explosion of popularity after Nicholson's clownery, Joker began appearing in video games, action figures, playing cards, and cartoons - most notably in the masterful mid-90s series Batman: The Animated Adventures. Animation and comics historians list these 90s cartoons as some of the very greatest ever produced, thanks to their distinctive visual style, mature storylines that refused to dumb down their source material to child audiences, and an A-list voice cast... led by none other than Star Wars' farm boy from a galaxy far, far away. Yes, the one and only Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, provided Mistah J's iconic cackles here, reprising the role several times since in spin-offs and even video games; Yours Truly joins a huge amount of fans in listing Hamill's as one of the very best versions of the character to date.

Post 9/11, comics and their film adaptations then followed the rest of the world's shift into grimmer, darker territories; terrorism, and the grey moral ambiguity that often arose in the "good guys'" response to it, became a central theme in comics media, and nowhere was that more on display than Christopher Nolan's landmark Dark Knight trilogy. Totally erasing the camp theatricality of the Burton-era entries, Nolan's Gotham City and its inhabitants are defined to their bones by a gritty realism that seemed more adapted from modern news headlines than comic book page-turners. At the forefront of this brilliant yet sobering treatment was actor Heath Ledger, who checked himself into a hotel room during pre-production for 2008's The Dark Knight with a notebook and a video camera - and emerged a month later as Batman's arch-nemesis.

"Why so serious?"

What Ledger did with the character is considered a landmark performance in cinema. A deeply committed method actor in his approach, Ledger spun the Joker as a twitchy, greasy anarchist bent on nothing less than the complete dissolution of rules and organized society in Gotham. Joker's clown appearance is no longer the result of a toxic chemical bath here, but a layer of clumsily-applied Halloween paint that smears and smudges, and a pair of Glasgow smile-type scars that adorn his cheeks. Even as Batman & the more official channels of Gotham law enforcement have to resort to more extreme (and increasingly unsavory) measures to stop the clown's terrorist wave, Joker dances five steps ahead, presenting his self-appointed title of "an agent of chaos" like a calling card.

Disturbing as it is enthralling to witness, Ledger's work on the Joker helped set box office records and establish standards that superhero cinema is still competing with, even a decade later. It also won Ledger an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - but posthumously, as the performer died of a sleeping pill overdose several months before The Dark Knight ever premiered. Heartbreakingly, it was discovered post-mortem that Ledger had apparently descended so far through his method acting into the villain's psyche that he was never able to fully climb out again after filming, and had turned to prescription pills as the only means of sleep relief. The onscreen legacy left behind in his wake is a testament to his incredible ability as an actor - but also to the truly evil, dangerous nature of the character.

Which brings us all the way to 2019.

(We're going to ignore Jared Leto's weird Suicide Squad thing with the character because... well yeah, we just are.)

I want to be crystal clear here. I have not yet seen this movie for myself. Accusations that I'm being unfairly premature in making any proclamations about it are valid. As I seem to have just demonstrated at length, something about this particular character is gold. I'm not sure if it's his status as the flip-coin equal of Batman, if it's the temptation he offers to literally laugh in the face of societal rules and norms... maybe people just like the whole creepy clown thing (hello, Pennywise). I really don't know.

Maybe that's what resonates, in a way? Maybe it's that he resists explanation, resists any kind of "definitive" interpretation or categorization - hence why he can alternately have a surf-off with Batman or be an incarnate version of the War on Terror, and both are considered true versions to the character's soul. If a writer or actor can rise (or perhaps more accurately, sink) to Joker's level, the potential is there for some astonishing work - the guy inside the paint this time around, Joaquin Phoenix, is already being tapped for Oscars buzz - and longtime fans should rightly be excited to see this new version answer that challenge.

But. But.

With the world already on edge way back in 2008 about terrorism, mass shootings, and the like, Heath Ledger's "we live in a society where the only way to live is without rules" philosophy was a little too unsettling for some; when a shooter then stormed a screening of the 2012 sequel The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado with his hair dyed to match the arch-criminal and a manifesto citing him as inspiration, the chilling subtext became subtext no longer. Again, with the mountain-sized caveat that I've seen nothing of the film beyond trailers, Joker is about a lonely, mentally-disturbed, bad-break white male who finds the joy he's so desperately been looking for by turning to violent crime. Sound a little too familiar?

What's more, the press tour has been something of a nightmare, as those involved in production have been continually given chances to try and put troubled minds at ease, only to do the exact opposite. This is supposed to be challenging, problematic material, sure, and devil's advocate, they probably wouldn't be doing this interpretation of character justice if they tried to water things down from its current R-rating. Comics are a flexible enough sandbox to allow for such radical interpretations, and tonal diversity in the genre should be welcomed and celebrated. But things have reached such a level of tension here that certain theaters are taking serious precautions at their screenings, banning all audience costumes, while both the U.S. military and the FBI have issued security warnings while monitoring the Internet for any suspicious chatter.

Again, I don't want to say "see" or "don't see" Joker when it drops this weekend. If reports from summer film festivals like the ones in Cannes & Venice are to be believed, you'll sit through more than two hours of incredibly filmed, well-written, spectacularly-acted story that, while it may not be "enjoyable" in the traditional sense of that word, will at minimum push boundaries and create dialogues about mental health awareness and our basic responsibilities to each other in a decent society. But that kind of experience shouldn't come with a price tag - most especially, that of basic safety - and Joker unfortunately doesn't seem like it can guarantee that.

With the kind of invitation Joker seems to send to send (unintentionally, no doubt, but still...) to potential copycats - "yes, you're right, it's not your fault, it was society's all along, you just wanted the attention we never gave you" - is this the movie we need right now? Do we want to give the stand-up spotlight to more Jokers, in a world already so full of them? Perhaps most troubling, if eras are defined by "their Joker," and 2019's is now a main character without a Batman in sight to balance him out... what does that say about where we're at?

That call is up to you - but please, no matter what, just keep your eyes and ears open while you do.

FaMILLiar Things - Mill No. 5

I'm a Lowell guy. I pass the scrupulous Jaws standard of "You're not born here, you're not an Islander, that's it!" and will proudly take my 978 area code DNA along with me wherever the years decide I should go.

It's a roughly fifteen-square-mile patch of seeming contradictions: it's blue-collar working class to the bone, filled with the pool halls and drinking holes that factory workers in any given Springsteen song would find refuge inside, yet it has one of the most vibrant art and culture scenes anywhere north of Boston; it has abundant natural resources (the Concord and Merrimack rivers, a state forest within its borders, the only urban greenspace conservation effort in the Northeast), yet it famously harnessed them to usher in the Industrial Revolution in America and establish itself, definitively, as the prototype of a factory town; the tech and I.T. industries have flourished around here, helped enormously by some of the premier applied chemistry and nursing programs in the country at local colleges, yet the city's banner weekend every year is the Folk Festival, the largest gathering of earthy-crunchy hipsters, craft-lovers, and foodies anywhere in New England.

As I grow up to appreciate it more, I find these contradictions give Lowell a kind of liminal, in-between, hard to pin down quality that may seem strange at first to outsiders, but can provide a battery of creativity to those who know where to look. I'm not the only writer to feel that way, incidentally; Lowell's got a long history with literary icons from Edgar Allan Poe to Charles Dickens, who've visited and drawn inspiration from this out-of-the-ordinary atmosphere. Poe supposedly composed his masterpiece The Raven at the local Worthen Pub (a claim The Worthen's sign seems to settle for evermore), while a Lowell historian and Dickens scholar recently claimed that Old 'Boz drew inspiration for his Christmas ghosts after he toured the area and encountered a similar notion in literary circulations produced as entertainment by the Mill Girls.

I'm here today to peel back the curtain on one of the best places I know of to chase down that off-kilter creativeness, a place I've visited for several years and where I suspect Poe, Dickens, and any other wanderers who enjoy stepping off the beaten path would feel right at home. The more selfish parts of my brain are screaming out as I type now, "Stop it! Don't let out this secret and ruin the city's best hangout spot!" But in the name of public interest, here is the absolute best - and certainly most unknown - Lowell attraction that you've probably never experienced.

Head on down to the booming Jackson Street area of Lowell, right on the fringes of the downtown. Jackson Street and its environs are currently experiencing a renaissance of sorts thanks to a city-wide renovation effort aimed at converting the previously run-down or abandoned shells of mill properties (there are dozens and dozens of them around here) into artist lofts and studios, resulting in the largest concentrated community of live-in artists on the Eastern Seaboard. At the end of the street nearer to the Lord Overpass and the Lowell MBTA station, you'll see a gated doorway and these signs:

Head through the gate into a dimly-lit tunnel that'll probably make you want to clutch your jewels a little tighter for a second or two; ward off thoughts of "I definitely took a wrong turn somewhere," follow the signs, and find yourself waiting for what's possibly the world's slowest-moving elevator.

After the elevator makes its snail's way to the 4th floor, the doors will open and, for a moment, you'll double-take that you've crossed into a "somewhere else" zone from the city street below; maybe the elevator was so slow because it wasn't just going up a few floors, so much as it was transporting you into a pocket of a secret, alternate world along the lines of Harry Potter's Diagon Alley.

 Welcome to Mill No. 5

This strange marketplace, whose banner tagline is "It's Not What You Think," opened its doors for the first time in the summer of 2013. At the time, it wasn't much more than some disparate storefronts that were probably too quirky or niche to stand a chance in the cutthroat, crowded competition of Merrimack St., the main artery through Lowell's downtown district where shops can be called successful if they endure through even one calendar rotation. 

However, Mill 5 has blossomed since then into (what in my humble opinion is) the best getaway spot in the whole downtown area. I spent many, many afternoons here in my grad school days, tucked into a private alcove of a reading room probably not too dissimilar from the ones Dickens saw and wrote about in his days hereabouts, where I typed out the first drafts and scribbles of the works I'm honing and revising to this day.

The Mill's "directory" can be found once you exit the elevator onto the cavernously creaking floorboards, and its contents can give you a pretty good idea of the experience lying ahead of you. Nerds, bibliophiles, and pop culture geeks of all denominations: brownie points for every reference you can spot on here.

Almost none of the stores here are open for business full time; most are their owners' pet side projects, an extra occupation for nights and on weekends, when Mill 5 hosts "Little Bazaars" that transform the space into a curio marketplace (usually seasonally themed) for local artists, farmers, and craft sellers. 

There are some regular staples, however: hands-down one of the best coffee places in a caffeinated city full of them is Coffee & Cotton, where you can juice up on some organic offerings before settling down in the adjacent reading room I'd mentioned.

Continue on down the hallway and you'll find a genuine '50s-esque soda fountain, complete with countertop stools, mineral sodas, and those red-and-white striped straws that scream out to be shared nose-to-nose on a date; an apothecary; photography & yoga studios; print shops; a guitar workshop; cheese makers; a vinyl record shop; and lots of other storefronts of the "huh, that's fun... know what, let's stop in for a second and see what they're about" variety -

- not to mention the odd paranormal research center or two. First instincts may laugh this off as an obvious gag, but maybe?...

Sitting proud at the opposite end of the long hallway from the elevator, however, is arguably Mill No. 5's main attraction: the Luna Theater.

Much as I love these kind of offerings in their own right, the Luna offers no midnight showings of Avengers: Endgame or Fast & Furious - come instead for screenings of Casablanca, the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, or the slasher films of the '80s horror heydays. I hate to repeat myself, but the movies shown here are reflective of Mill 5 as a whole, and register well off the mainstream. They're purposely NOT showing the same stuff as AMC or Showcase theaters here, because there are plenty of those to go around, and why not shake things up a bit and see something else for a change? There are special events where, say, the entire Harry Potter series will be shown over a weekend, but you're just as likely - if not more so - to show up at the box office and find a screening of an obscure late-60s documentary on Jimi Hendrix. If you're a Greater Lowell resident looking for a night out, the Luna Theater needs to be at the top of your list.

Mill 5 has expanded its bazaars over the years to now include a second floor upstairs. On weekdays, there's not much up here except a cool place to walk around and wander, but on weekends, this place turns into a beehive of etchings, necklaces, fresh fruits, and more.

Once you get your fill of all this wonderful weirdness, you can head down one of the old mill's tower staircases (just make sure to follow the signs and refrain from social media-ing during emergencies as much as possible). Re-emerging back onto the street below, you can be forgiven for feeling just the slightest bit jarred - is that Diagon Alley marketplace upstairs really contained in such an unassuming, almost deceptive shell? Is it really that short a distance from "somewhere else" to paved city streets with parking meters and potholes? In Lowell, that fifteen square mile patch of those proud contradictions, the answer seems to be yes.

My grandparents had an apartment in a similar mill complex on the other side of the downtown when I was a kid, and their building's entryway had a staircase nearly identical to the one leading from Mill 5 to the streets; thinking about it, I can't remember one visit to see them (and the visits were countless, living as close as I did) where I didn't peek my head over the railing on my way past, trying to follow the spirals up their dizzying heights to... I never knew what.

Even as a kid, maybe that Lowell DNA in me was already wondering just what you could find in these mills, these mills that are the very origin and emblem of my hometown (it ain't called "The Mill City" for nothing). Once or twice, I broke off as my parents brought in groceries or my grandparents checked their lobby mail box, and I tried to sneak up that staircase to find out what the spirals led to on the upper floors. I never made it further than the very first bend, where a locked wooden grate across the steps stopped me going any higher. But my instincts were correct. I think I understood, with childhood's ability to understand based on nothing more concrete than a hunch, that there was magic in these mills, special secrets on faraway floors that could be uncovered by those who knew enough to look for the paths to get there.

Turns out I was right all along.

MARVELOUS MARVEL RECAP - PHASE 3 (Part 2)

Well... here we are, folks.

The whole dizzying tapestry and ever-expanding character cast of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the rising action to this one fever pitch of an event, capped off once and for all TOMORROW NIGHT when Avengers Endgame drops.

There are only a few entries left in our Marvelous Marvel Recap before this grandest of grand finales, so let's just dive right into them without any further ado:

BLACK PANTHER

THE GIST: Returning to his hyper-advanced and secretive kingdom of Wakanda in the aftermath of his father's death in Civil War, Prince T'Challa ascends to the throne and assumes the hereditary warrior mantle of Black Panther among his people, all the while aided by his genius sister Shuri and an elite force of all-women bodyguards.

Soon into T'Challa's rule, however, his claim to the throne is challenged by an American mercenary named Erik Killmonger, who has secret ties to the royal bloodline and whose experiences with racism during his upbringing as an African-American put him at ideological odds with Wakanda's isolationist policies. T'Challa must confront Killmonger's violent actions while reckoning with his valid claims, and ultimately decides to share Wakanda's technological marvels with the rest of the world.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: It might be a toss-up between this and the original Iron Man for the title of best self-encompassed entry in the MCU. Easily the studio's most social-minded work, the film's intelligent message and themes don't get lost in or interfere for one second with our total immersion in the utopian Wakanda, whose various tribes and traditions make it Marvel's richest setting (literally and figuratively so) to date. Add in some downright Shakespearean family dynamics between fathers, sons, and cousins, and it's no wonder this one shattered box office records around the world and became the first MCU film to take home some Oscars bling.

Wakanda Forever.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 5/5

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

THE GIST: Believing his actions will save the universe from the effects of overpopulation and the scarcity of natural resources, the purple-chinned space warlord Thanos sets out to collect all six of the Infinity Stones: deadly and mysterious ingots of concentrated cosmic power that grant their wielder absolute control over the very concepts of time, space, and reality. Individual stones have been scattered across the preceding eighteen Marvel flicks as plot points unto themselves; by collecting them all in one place and activating them simultaneously, Thanos will have the ability to eliminate half of all sentient life across the universe with a snap of his fingers.

The Avengers and their various allies across the cosmos therefore find themselves scrambling to prevent Thanos from carrying out his terrible mission. Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy confront the stone-wielding warlord in a climactic battle on his desolated homeworld, while the fugitive Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and James "Rhodey" Rhodes (aka War Machine) unite with Black Panther and the Wakandan army to fend off Thanos' minions from obtaining the final stone in its hiding place on Earth.

The heroes' efforts ultimately fall short, however, and even after the tide-turning arrival of Thor with a powerful new battle axe, Thanos is able to obtain and activate all six stones with a snap of his fingers. Winter Soldier, Black Panther, Groot, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Shuri, Mantis, Drax, Star Lord, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and half of the universe's population then disintegrate into dust, leaving the stunned survivors behind to grieve while Thanos himself retires to a peaceful farm world.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: The culmination of all that came before it and the shadow over everything that's come since, the hype leading into Infinity War was almost impossibly unrealistic - yet somehow, this movie was able to not only pass expectations, but shatter them. There is so damn much happening here, yet unlike Age of Ultron, this one sticks the landing, and so is one of the more epic spectacles you're ever likely to watch. Infinity War sprints out of the gate, and never once lets up for a breather: Thor is rescued by the Guardians of the Galaxy, who quip with Iron Man, who has a battle of egos and goatees with Doctor Strange, who duels Thanos, who pulls a damn moon from the sky and throws it at his opponents.

You think the movie has reached peak-goosebumps level when a renegade Captain America emerges from the shadows, war-torn and sporting a full beard - and then Thor touches down in Wakanda with Rocket and Groot, brandishing a battle axe and bellowing "BRING ME THANOS!" as he charges into enemy hordes... and you realize you can't even see the peak yet.

For all the fireworks, however, nothing compares to the gut-punch of disbelief delivered by the film's eerie ending, as one beloved hero after another literally disintegrates into oblivion before our eyes. No one expected (or certainly believed) Marvel would be gutsy enough to actually go through with such a bold narrative choice and off these characters, who we've invested so much time and attention in - but now that they have, the sheer hysteria leading into Endgame has paid their chess master strategy off in spades.

RE-WATCH VALUE: ∞/5

ANT-MAN & THE WASP

THE GIST: Breaking the house arrest he was placed under after the events of Civil War, Lang becomes Ant-Man again to assist Pym and Hope - now with a shrinking suit of her own and calling herself The Wasp - in extracting Hank's wife Janet Van Dyne from the Quantum Realm, a subatomic time warp zone where she has been trapped for over twenty years.

The trio's efforts are challenged by black market dealers and a masked criminal known as The Ghost, who can walk through solid surfaces after surviving a Quantum Realm-related accident as a child.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: Just as funny as the original Ant-Man, this outing has the additional benefit of Lang's double act with the even-more-adept heroism of the Wasp, as well as a more realized threat in The Ghost, whose phasing powers make for some "coooooool" special effects.

Most important, however, is an after-credits scene that [SPOILERS] will likely prove of the utmost importance to all the Avengers' hopes in Endgame. When Hank, Hope, and the now-rescued Janet all disintegrate as a result of Thanos' snap, Lang finds himself stranded in the time-warping weirdness of the Quantum Realm. The mysterious timey-wimey properties of Lang's cliffhanger fate might just turn out to be the eleventh-hour Hail Mary the Avengers are in such desperate need of...

RE-WATCH VALUE: 4/5

CAPTAIN MARVEL

THE GIST: An amnesiac warrior from an alien race known as the Kree crash lands on planet Earth in the 1990s; working with a younger Nick Fury at the start of his SHIELD career, she discovers that she is in fact a human by the name of Carol Danvers, and disappeared in a mysterious plane crash incident six years ago.

Carol subsequently uncovers some unpleasant truths about her time with the Kree and their war with the shape-shifting Skrulls, then uses her newly unlocked powers to put an end to the conflict. Carol departs from Earth on a mission to help the Skrull refugees find a suitable new homeworld, and leaves a modified pager with Fury to contact her in case of emergencies.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: The most recent of the MCU releases, it's fitting that Captain Marvel debuted during Women's History Month. Carol is feminism's new favorite superhero, and she ends her arc in the movie with the fist-bumping realization that she doesn't owe it to anyone - least of all her male detractors - to prove herself in any way. She knows exactly who she is now: a tough-as-nails pilot who can shoot energy blasts out of her fists and punch gaping holes in spaceship hulls, without getting so much as a scratch herself. Oh, and she likes  flerkens  cats

At the end of Infinity War, Nick Fury is one of the uncountable victims to fall casualty to Thanos' snap; in his final moments before being dusted, he is able to successfully activate Carol's modified pager. In the mid-credits scene here, Carol, having received his distress call, returns to Earth and meets up with the surviving Avengers. Thanos, if I were you, I'd be running. Fast.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 3.5/5

PHASE 3 (Part 2) FINAL TALLY

Snapped: Ant-Man & The Wasp, Captain Marvel
Survived: Black Panther, Infinity War
"Perfectly balanced... as all things should be."

Gun to the head, if there's only ONE movie of the whole MCU effort you should watch before Endgame, it has to be Infinity War, since the pair allegedly comprise Parts I & II of the same story - but honestly, Infinity War requires just as much prep to understand it as its sequel, hence the whole darned purpose of these last few posts.
For those willing to enjoy the full ride, however - as well as for those who've been keeping count as we made our way through here - we have Iron Man, The Avengers, The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Civil War, Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Infinity War as our final roster of A-list, starting lineup, MUST SEE offerings before it all comes to a close,.

And there you have it! A Marvel-sized thanks to anyone who followed along here from start to finish. I hope these recaps were able to save some time and maybe even refresh some memories for those hoping to brush up on their Captains (from America to Marvel) before the cinematic event of our generation rolls around this weekend.
It's been one of the joys of my movie-going life to experience these movies, this shared universe, with friends and family all throughout high school, college, and now "adult" life. What was once the kind of thing you got laughed off the playground for showing enthusiasm over has become the pop culture pantheon of our time, and witnessing it blossom into a beacon of inclusion, humor, and heroism - at a time when they're all so desperately needed - has been a once-in-a-lifetime ride.
I've had Endgame circled on my calendar now for months; experiencing it tomorrow night with my dad Patrick (the original hero who introduced me to this all in the first place), fiance Katie, and cousin Ben, in a sold-out theater of fans who will laugh, cry, and clap their hands raw, will be a memory I'll probably take with me the rest of my life.

Enjoy, everyone - good luck, and keep the spoilers to yourselves.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!!!!

MARVELOUS MARVEL RECAP - PHASE 3 (Part 1)

Not to be cliche, but the third time really is the charm.

While Phases 1 & 2 had incredible highlights of their own, and laid the groundwork for everything that was to come, many people agree that Phase 3 - which we're still technically in the throes of - is where the Marvel Cinematic Universe fires on all cylinders, all the time. Every installment here swings for the fence: some clear it, some fall only just short, landing in warning-track territory, and some go over the fence, over the street beyond, and clear to the other side of the block. This truly is where we separate the ladies and gents from the boys and girls.

Phase 3 is also twice the size of its earlier counterparts, so for the sake of digestion, I've halved this portion of our tour into parts I & II. This splitting happens to be a fitting parallel to the opening salvo of this chapter in the MCU, kicking things off with a bang in...

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

THE GIST: A vengeful Sokovia survivor manipulates the recovering Winter Soldier's brainwashing as a murderous HYDRA agent to bring about controversial United Nations legislation, which splits the Avengers down the middle: one faction, led by Rogers, resists the legislation out of skepticism about corrupt government oversight; another, led by Stark, favors the restrictive measures as the most responsible approach given the group's unintentionally destructive history.

Through further staging and manipulation of events, the ideological debate comes to blows, and the Avengers are left effectively disbanded.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: It does not get better than this, the strong contender for my personal favorite of all the MCU offerings to date. The plot here unfolds a complex narrative that reckons with the mistakes of previous movies and gives them real, friendship-ending consequences. There's no "bad guys" here, just heroes with differing, valid, faithfully-characterized points of view that place them in opposition to each other, leaving wounds that have yet to be healed.

On top of all this, the film still manages to squeeze in some fantastic moments of humor, stages what might be the greatest superhero action sequence of all time (good luck ever looking at an airport tarmac the same way again), and masterfully introduces two MAJOR A-listers into the MCU's proceedings. Rounding out #TeamIronMan, we meet the regal, vibranium-clawed Prince T'Challa of Wakanda, aka the Black Panther, and also the world's favorite wisecracking webhead, Spider-Man, finally at home and among friends in the MCU where he belongs after some hit-and-miss reboot attempts.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 5/5

DOCTOR STRANGE

THE GIST: As gifted as he is arrogant, Stephen Strange's career as an eminent neurosurgeon is cut short when a car accident causes permanent nerve damage in his hands. Seeking a cure, he winds up at a remote monastery in Nepal - where instead of a medical miracle, he discovers practitioners of sorcery and dimensional-spanning magic.

Strange studies and eventually masters these powerful newfound skills, becoming Earth's new Sorcerer Supreme after thwarting a band of fanatics from summoning a lethal interdimensional entity.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: The ingredients were all here for this to potentially become Marvel's first flop: Doctor Strange simply doesn't have the kind of fan following or name recognition as the Captain Americas of the world, and worse, his "brilliant white man goes to the uncharted Orient and masters its secrets" narrative could've left a bad taste in audience's mouths.

Fortunately, things turned out entirely for the opposite.

Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch slides into Strange's Cloak of Levitation like a surgical glove, flexing some serious acting chops while the movie around him conjures up what might be the MCU's most impressive special effects to date (if not, then certainly the most trippy). Whole city blocks furl and unfurl like an M.C. Escher painting on acid, and the film's creatively brilliant use of time manipulation in the final act elevates it into something special among superhero flicks.

Rumors abound of the MCU's old guard heading off into the sunset after Endgame; hopefully not, but if so, Strange is the one standing poised to receive the "brilliant goatee'd leader" baton from Iron Man.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 4/5

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, VOL. 2

THE GIST: Gamora's murderous adoptive sister/cyborg (and fellow abuse survivor) Nebula, and the naive empath Mantis (she can feel others' emotions and lull people into sleep) join the Guardians' lineup while Star Lord confronts some major daddy issues, and the grooves get groovier.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: Like riding a roller coaster a second time, this one isn't quite as unexpectedly thrilling or fun as Vol. 1, but it still gets the job done in spades. An opening tracking shot of Groot (now a baby) innocently dancing his way to Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky" through a battle scene of absolute carnage is better in and of itself than whole other franchises.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 3.5/5

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

THE GIST: Bored with his return to ordinary high school life after being handpicked by Stark to participate in the events of Civil War, Peter Parker seeks out ways to prove himself as a superhero by being "a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," around his native Queens.

His heroics frequently cause more problems than they solve, however, and Parker must learn to responsibly balance his high school commitments, his mentoring under Stark, and his web-spinning superpowers in enough time to stop a high-tech weapons thief known as the Vulture, who is scavenging wreckage from Avengers battles to create dangerous black market items.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: It's no secret: I love Spider-Man. Yours Truly learned to read in the pages of the webhead's comics, and of anyone in the entire comics pantheon, there's no-one I relate to more on a personal level than the bill-fretting, pop culture obsessed Peter Parker, who uses humor and kindness to make his way through family health crises and supervillain threats alike.

While not an essential MCU pillar, I can point outsiders to this one movie and say, "This, right here, is what I love about the character." Note-perfect mastery of Spidey's tone, his Breakfast Club dynamic with his high school classmates, his street-level heroism (which includes things as simple as providing directions to tourists), and a great bad guy make this one charmingly endearing.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 4/5


THOR: RAGNAROK

THE GIST: Hela, the Norse Goddess of Death and Thor's previously-unknown sister, is released from her imprisonment by the death of Odin. She overpowers Thor and Loki, destroying Mjolnir in the process, and afterwards invades Asgard to become its new ruler. Thor, with Loki in tow, finds himself stranded on a desolate waste planet, where he is forced to become a gladiator to fight for his survival. During the fights, he is reunited with Hulk, who has risen through the gladiatorial ranks to become the reigning champion after his last appearance in Age of Ultron. 

Thor, Loki, Hulk, and one of the legendary Valkyries (a gladiatorial champion herself) escape back to Asgard, where they cause Ragnarok - the destruction of Asgard - to destroy Hela and save Asgard's people.

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT: New Zealand comedy director Taika Waititi takes the reins of Thor's "Vikings... in space" saga, and immediately gets to work trimming away almost all the franchise's window dressing with glee: Thor loses his father, his friends, his hammer, his homeworld, his hair, and even an eye over the course of his misadventures here. But bizarrely, despite all these hardships, Ragnarok is one of the most playful, quirky, and frequently hilarious offerings in the MCU.

It expertly inserts Hulk back into the fold, introduces the hard-drinking and head-slashing Valkyrie, and establishes Thor as an even more powerful hero because of his ability to overcome each of his never-ending losses. It also has a sequence of Thor blasting down from the heavens in a blaze of lightning into a crowd of zombies on Asgard's Rainbow Bridge, all to the deafening musical accompaniment of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." If your head doesn't explode from sheer hard-rock awesomeness of that sentence, check your pulse.

RE-WATCH VALUE: 4.5/5

PHASE 3 (Part I) FINAL TALLY
Academic Decathlon champs: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok
First Alternate team: Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming
Detention: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2

Comic fans who survived the Dark Ages of the direct-to-home-release atrocities trying to pass as superhero adaptations in the '90s know: we are well and truly in the middle of a Golden Age. Spider-Man now swings through the same city blocks as Doctor Strange's Greenwich Village digs, all watched over from above by Thor and the Asgardians.
But a certain Mad Titan has been looming on the periphery of this happy interconnectedness, plotting to decimate it all by half. And he's about to step out into the spotlight.

Next up: Wakanda Forever, a new kind of HERo... and the Snap heard round the world.